The Legislature will be looking at a bill to replace Chinese drones the state owns.
The sponsor -- Rep. Mike Nathe (R-Bismarck) -- said the state owns 353 drones.
"We have found out 88 percent of those are Chinese-made drones," Nathe said. "They have been found to have listening devices, tracking devices, data devices on them," Nathe said. "In fact, it's so much so that the Army, the Department of Defense and the federal government have started to ban these and outlaw them."
Nathe said the bill has a $15 million price tag to get rid of the Chinese drones. He said it is a real security concern.
"These drones fly over our oil fields, missile sites, air bases, ag land, our communities," Nathe said. "I know from talking to officials who have found these devices on these things. They now they're collecting data, they know it's transmitting, but they don't know where to. And that's a fact."
Nathe says the Chinese drones will be turned over to a third party, to find out what they have on board.
ENCHANCED FAA DATA
Nathe has another bill, to access enhanced Federal Aviation Administration data. He said that measure would help the "beyond visual line of sight" drones.
"The FAA has flight data for all control towers and such,' Nathe said. "This $11 million would give the state of North Dakota the access o that data. We would be the only state in the country to have access to that data."
Nathe said that will help the “Vantis” system, which he said acts as a “control tower” for those drones.
"So if other states — and there are other states looking at purchasing the rights to our 'Vantis' system, and we have the FAA data accessibility, that just enhances the Vantis system that much more," Nathe said.
Nathe said the state of North Dakota gets a royalty off any state or organization that buys into the “Vantis” system. He said North Dakota has already invested about $75 million in Vantis.
